Chapter 9 Freya
Freya
The helicopter's downdraft batters me as I stand in the clearing, arms raised overhead, waving frantically.
Snow swirls around my legs, but the storm has mysteriously calmed—visibility clear enough for the searchlight to find me easily.
I squint against the brightness, heart pounding with a confusion of emotions: relief, regret, uncertainty.
Behind me, Vidar's cabin stands dark and silent. He's already gone, melted into the wilderness like the winter entity he is. I haven't turned to look. I'm afraid that if I do, my resolve will crumble, and I'll run back inside, choosing mystery and danger over responsibility and safety.
"We see you!" crackles a voice over a loudspeaker. "Stay where you are!"
The helicopter circles once, then hovers nearby, unable to land in the deep snow. A figure in orange rescue gear descends on a line, touching down twenty feet away. He approaches cautiously, as if worried I might be injured or unstable.
"Freya Lindholm?" he shouts over the roar of the rotors.
I nod, forcing a smile that feels like it might crack my face. "That's me!"
"Are you injured? Can you move?"
"I'm fine!" I call back. "Just cold and tired!"
Relief washes over his features. He says something into his radio, then reaches me, checking me over with practiced efficiency.
"You're a miracle," he says, genuine amazement in his voice. "Three days in these conditions... most people don't make it past the first night."
Three days. Has it only been three days? It feels like I've lived a lifetime since getting lost in that storm.
"I found shelter," I explain, gesturing toward the cabin. "Got lucky."
"Very lucky," he agrees, helping me into a harness. "We're going to lift you up first, okay? The rest of the team will check the cabin, make sure there's no one else."
A flutter of panic rises in my chest. "There's no one. It was abandoned when I found it."
He studies me briefly, then nods. "Still protocol to check. Ready to go up?"
As we're lifted into the helicopter, I watch the ground fall away—the cabin growing smaller, the vast white landscape expanding around it. From above, the isolation of the place is breathtaking. How did I ever find it in that blizzard? The odds seem impossible.
Not impossible, a voice whispers in my mind. Guided.
Inside the helicopter, I'm immediately surrounded by the rescue team—wrapped in thermal blankets, offered hot drinks, peppered with questions.
Their voices overlap, their concern genuine but overwhelming after days of just one voice—deep, resonant, measured.
I answer automatically, my prepared story flowing easily.
"Got disoriented in the sudden storm... GPS died in the cold... saw the cabin through the snow... survived on emergency rations and melted snow..."
They accept it all without question. Why wouldn't they? It's essentially true, just with the most important details omitted.
"Your guide has been beside himself," says a woman who introduces herself as the search coordinator. "He's been out every day the weather allowed, convinced you were still alive."
Guilt twists inside me. Poor árni. While I was discovering impossible things in a winter guardian's arms, he was torturing himself with responsibility for my disappearance.
"The conditions were impossible," I say. "He couldn't have prevented it."
As we fly toward civilization, I find myself pressing a hand to my chest, where a strange coolness has settled beneath my skin. Not uncomfortable, just... present. A reminder. I can still feel the ghost of frost patterns tingling across my body, still taste the winter-cold of Vidar's kiss.
"Are you sure you're alright?" asks a paramedic, noticing my gesture. "Any chest pain? Difficulty breathing?"
"I'm fine," I assure him. "Just... processing."
He nods understandingly. "Survival situations can be traumatic. The adrenaline crash will hit you soon. Don't be surprised if you feel overwhelmed once you're safe."
If only he knew the true source of my overwhelm.
The helicopter lands at a small regional hospital where I'm immediately whisked inside for examination.
The bright fluorescent lights hurt my eyes after days of oil lamps and firelight.
Everything seems too loud, too fast, too artificial.
I find myself longing for the quiet of the cabin, the soft crackle of the fire, the gentle swirl of frost in the air.
The doctor who examines me seems puzzled.
"Your body temperature is slightly below normal," she says, frowning at the thermometer, "but you're showing no signs of hypothermia. No frostbite. Not even mild exposure symptoms."
"I was careful," I explain. "Stayed dry, kept moving, found shelter quickly."
She doesn't look entirely convinced but makes notes in my chart. "Well, whatever you did worked. I've never seen someone come through three days in those conditions with such minimal effects."
If she only knew that "minimal effects" included frost patterns that formed and faded on my skin, and a strange new affinity for cold that I can feel settling into my bones like a secret.
After the examination, I'm given a private room to rest. The hospital staff brings me a phone to make calls.
I contact árni first, reassuring him I'm alright.
His relief is palpable even through the connection.
Then I call my editor back in Canada, giving a tightly edited version of events.
Yes, I'm fine. No, I won't sue the guide company.
Yes, I even got some amazing shots before the storm hit.
I don't mention the most extraordinary photos stored on my camera—images of a being who shouldn't exist, with antlers of crystalline ice and eyes that glow like winter stars.
As night falls, I find myself unable to sleep despite exhaustion.
The room is too warm, the sheets too confining.
I open the window, letting in the cold night air, and finally feel my muscles relax as the temperature drops.
When I exhale, I notice my breath forming a visible cloud despite the room not being that cold.
Curious, I place my hand against the window glass. Frost immediately forms around my fingertips, spreading in delicate patterns before quickly fading. My heart races. So it wasn't just in his presence. Something has changed in me, just as he said it would.
I should be terrified. Instead, I feel a strange thrill. Tangible proof that what happened was real. That he was real.
The next morning brings a parade of visitors—police wanting statements, hospital administrators checking on their miracle survivor, local press hoping for interviews.
I navigate them all on autopilot, sticking to my simple story, deflecting questions about the cabin's ownership.
By afternoon, I'm discharged with a clean bill of health and instructions to "take it easy" for a few days.
árni meets me at the hospital entrance, his weathered face creased with lingering concern and relief. He hugs me briefly, awkwardly, then leads me to his truck.
"Your flight back to Canada is still scheduled for the day after tomorrow," he says as we drive. "Do you want to change it? Stay longer to recover?"
I consider the question seriously. Part of me wants to stay, to remain close to the mountains where Vidar dwells.
But another part—the practical photographer who's always paid her bills on time—knows I need to return home, at least temporarily.
I have deadlines, clients waiting for images, rent to pay.
"No," I say finally. "I need to get back. Submit my work, fulfill my contract."
He nods, looking relieved. "Good. I think some distance from this place would be healthy right now."
If only he knew how much a part of this place I've already carried inside me.
The guesthouse is cozy and warm—too warm. I find myself opening windows despite the innkeeper's concerned looks. In the shower, I turn the water to cold and stand under the spray, feeling more comfortable than I ever have in such temperatures.
That night, I finally review the photos on my camera. Most are what I'd expect—stunning ice formations, black volcanic sand against snow, the dramatic Icelandic landscape. Then I reach the ones of Vidar.
My breath catches. Even in the two-dimensional images, he's magnificent.
The skull mask partially transparent over his features.
The antlers extending in crystalline branches.
Frost patterns swirling across his skin.
In the final photo, the one I took of us together, the contrast is striking—his pale blue-white skin against my flushed human tones, frost forming where we touch.
Proof. Evidence. Mystery.
I need to protect these images at all costs. If anyone saw them... I can't even imagine the consequences. For Vidar, for me, for the fragile secret we now share.
I transfer the photos to my laptop, then create an encrypted folder with a password I'll remember.
Then I methodically delete them from my camera's memory card, making absolutely certain they can't be recovered.
These images aren't for sharing, not with editors or audiences, not with anyone. They're mine. Ours.
I carefully select which photos to submit to my client—stunning landscapes, ice formations, the beauty of Iceland's winter wilderness. All technically excellent, all completely natural, nothing that would raise questions about impossible beings with antlers made of ice.
The next day passes in a blur of practical matters—collecting the gear I'd left at árni's office, finalizing my invoice, packing my belongings.
All the while, I'm hyperaware of the changes continuing within me.
My breath forms visible clouds in rooms others find perfectly comfortable.
My shower runs cold enough to make the pipes creak.
At night, tiny frost patterns form on my pillowcase where my cheek rests.
On my final evening in Iceland, I stand alone on the guesthouse balcony, watching snow fall gently over the small town. I lift my face to the cold flakes, feeling them land on my skin without melting immediately as they once would have.
"I'll come back," I whisper, not sure if I'm speaking to myself or to him, if he can hear me across the miles of wilderness that separate us. "I need to go home first, but I'll come back."
For a moment, the snowfall seems to pause, flakes hanging suspended in the air around me. Then they begin to dance—not falling randomly but swirling in deliberate patterns, touching my face like cool fingertips before resuming their natural descent.
Message received.
As I turn to go inside, I notice frost patterns on the balcony railing where my hands rested—not chaotic crystals, but deliberate designs. Intricate swirls that form words in a language I don't know but somehow understand.
Until winter calls again.
I trace the patterns with my fingertip, watching them melt at my touch, and smile. This isn't an ending. It's barely even a pause.
Whatever lies between us—between the human photographer and the winter guardian, between warmth and cold, between two worlds that should never touch but somehow have—it's just beginning.
And I intend to capture every moment of it.